[00:00:02] Speaker A: KMUD Podcast presents.
This is global stuff. My name is Jimmy Derschlag.
We're talking in the first part of the show to Teddy Wilson, journalist, researcher, consultant. And the reason why I wanted to have him on the show, especially around this election time, is I saw his name as part of a release from the Institute for Public Accuracy, which covers a lot of current issues and talking about the challenges to the election that are already in the works and the American First Legal foundation and the challenges it has put out. But before we start that, perhaps you could go into a little bit of your background. I know you have radical reports, your website on Substack, and you talk a lot about what's happening with the various right wing organizations. Not exclusively, but talk a little bit about your background and what your focus is.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: And first off, thank you so much for inviting me to come on the show. It's a real pleasure to get to talk to you all tonight, especially because my background in journalism, I actually began in community radio.
So I started at Community radio station in Texas, Kos 89.1 FM in Bryan and College Station.
And so, yeah, I have a deep love for community and independent radio. So it's an extra pleasure to get to talk to you all today. I I have a background in the last 10 to 15 years of covering various parts of the American right more broadly in the conservative movement.
I spent quite a bit of time covering and investigation investigating the anti abortion movement and the US Christian right. And then over the past several years I have focused primarily on different parts of the radical right or the far right and extremist movements in particular. So everything from the militia movement and far right groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, to white supremacist groups including Patriot Front, to even violent extremist groups like the Base and the Adam Waffen Division. So that's kind of my background and kind of where I've come from to where I am today.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: And you're publishing regularly on your website and I assume in other places your articles and the research and what you've discovered about what some of those groups are up to and their plans.
[00:03:43] Speaker C: Right. I publish right now. I published about three or four times a week on my newsletter on radical reports.
Over the course of the next two weeks, I'll be publishing basically on a daily basis because of there is so much happening within kind of this that I monitor and research leading into the election.
So I'll be publishing quite a bit more. And I also do freelance reporting for various outlets.
My work has appeared in Places like Rolling Stone.
I've been quoted in various articles about the radical right. I think recently I was quoted in an article in the Washington Post.
So, yeah, I'm kind of primarily at my newsletter, but you can find my work and kind of my research in various other places as well.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Well, we're so glad to have you here to share it with us.
What about, let's jump into this. So what is the America First Legal Foundation? And even before the election, we don't know the results of the election. You know, it certainly, it seems like a coin flip right now in that there's a very good chance that Trump could win outright. But they're already preparing these legal challenges with this whole, so talk about the America First Legal foundation and this whole, this concept of, you know, this legal concept, the independent legislature's theory that they're promoting.
[00:05:32] Speaker C: Right. Well, so the America First Legal foundation was, is a relatively new organization. It was only founded a few years ago.
Stephen Miller is one of the founders and primary leaders of the organization. But there are multiple far right figures and kind of right wing Republicans, many of whom were in the Trump administration that are a part of this legal group. It really began as kind of a, for lack of a better descriptor, kind of an anti woke legal organization. They would target like corporations and other government institutions for any kind of perceived wokeness, quote, unquote.
And then in the last year or so, they have also targeted the or they have described a lot of their efforts as protecting election integrity.
And they are, I think they're a good example, kind of one of the prime examples of these groups. I think it's important to remember that America First Legal foundation is really part of a larger nexus, kind of a network of these right wing groups that are all kind of doing similar things, kind of playing from a very similar playbook.
And as you alluded to, a lot of it involves targeting the infrastructure of the election and how we run elections even before any votes are cast on election Day. I think what a lot of people think about kind of the challenges that we're going to face in the next couple weeks, wait a little bit, and, and how Trump and the Trump campaign may think about challenging the election results.
I think a lot of that work is already being done. So America First Legal foundation, for example, is involved in a lawsuit in Arizona where they are trying to essentially purge the voter rolls, like making substantiated claims about the numbers of undocumented immigrants that they claim are on the voter rolls or other people that are ineligible to vote in an effort to purge the voter rolls to benefit Republicans. And this has been happening in other places and other states around the country, primarily in swing states. So you're seeing a lot of this activity in places like Arizona and Georgia and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan as they.
And it's a really two part strategy. One, you are, they are trying to actually affect the results, right, by purging people from eligible voters. But also it's part of a larger strategy to kind of create doubt within the public about the legitimacy of the election results before they even happen.
And this is all kind of part of a much larger strategy we can talk about if you want, that Trump and the right is doing kind of around the election as well and kind of all these different parts that are part of a much bigger playbook.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that'd be good to talk about that as well, at least in a minute. I do want to remind the listeners we got a little slow start here, but this is global stuff. My name is Jimmy Derschlag. We're talking in the first part of the show to Teddy Wilson, who does a lot of research on what various right wing groups are up to. He's a journalist, researcher, consultant, can find him radical reports on his substack website.
In Arizona, they filed, they already questioned the it was in three counties. I guess Maricopa was thrown out of that. But three counties were they already saying there's missteps and illegalities and they had a list of 24 orders that they wanted enforced. What are the kinds of things they were, they were going after?
[00:10:29] Speaker C: Well, I'm not sure about the details of that specifically, but I think generally what these groups tend to target is things like drop boxes, right. Where people can drop off their ballot prior to election day or on election day or other methods of collecting ballots. They also really seize on any kind of problems with voting machines or, you know, problems with kind of the process itself. Right. This is when we hold these big national elections and, you know, you're talking about tens of thousands of election workers spread across 50 different states, you know, millions of voters in, you know, each of these states, you know, is made up of 100 or more counties with dozens of precincts in each county. There's going to be, you know, there's going to be disruptions and there's going to be problems here and there. And so these groups really seize on any little kind of problem and try to claim that it's proof of some, either a, either a larger issue with the vote. Right. Or they often kind of delve into conspiracy theories that this, any kind of problem is malicious and on purpose to disrupt the vote. So, I mean, there, there's a whole slew of ways that they could target things.
I think one of the more insidious things that I've seen recently is in North Carolina, you know, a state that is still dealing with the aftermath of the recent hurricane. Right. And the devastation from floods and wind and all kinds of damage that happened. You had far right activists come into the state, and now you're seeing Republican members of the state legislature and members of Congress parroting this idea that because of the hurricane, the vote can't be fair. So the state legislature should throw out the votes even before election day and allow the state legislature to determine the winner of the presidential election in North Carolina, which is, you know, kind of a part of this much bigger playbook that they've been using. So, yeah, there's a number of ways that you see these folks try to attack the vote.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: I think we might have a caller. Is the caller still there? We might as well get to that.
Hi, you're on the air.
Are you there? Did they drop off?
[00:13:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:34] Speaker D: Hi.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Hi.
[00:13:35] Speaker E: I got you. Oh, it's Maureen. And I'm so glad for these conversations.
I really will go ahead and say again that I like Wavy Gravy's attitude. Nobody for president, you know, because it's so corrupt.
How can we vote for these people who will. Oh, like, you know, I think because I've lived with Kmart since 2006, that, you know, where I'm coming from and where we. Well, you know, I could be braggadocio where we should all be coming from. No nonsense. This is crucial. And, you know, I can't vote in this country because I'm Canadian and I don't live in Canada, so I can't vote there. But, like, I really love nobody for president because it's so corrupt.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: And I appreciate your opinion.
[00:14:48] Speaker E: I just want to pass this on if I could.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: I appreciate your comment.
[00:14:55] Speaker E: People, don't get too upset.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: I appreciate your comment. But did you have a question or.
[00:15:01] Speaker E: I'm making something here. Robert F. Kennedy said, like, he's on the Trump campaign because Trump is unhinged and like, this is a lawyer. Like, if you look up his research and, you know, not pay attention to the negatives of, like, whatever has been said about him.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Well, thank you. We appreciate your comments, but I'm going to talk to my guest. I'm sorry.
Yeah. If it, you know, callers, if you have a question or a brief comment that relates to the topic that we're talking about. I'm more than happy to talk to you. And you heard nobody for president. So I think she got her point across. You were what you were talking about. So they're actually, and this just came up on your blog or your website that I was reading today, that they're actually asking the North Carolina legislature, which I assume is primarily Republican, to take over the election and not even allow any votes and just decide who's going to win the electoral college count from North Carolina. So that's all part of this independent legislature theory. But even before the fact, isn't the independent legislature theory really that the legislature, if there's irregularities in the process, I guess that's what they're claiming, can vote, throw out the vote and decide where the state's electoral votes should be assigned?
[00:16:38] Speaker C: Right. And what North Carolina Republicans and the far right activists are involved in this are doing is kind of preemptively Right. Trying to subvert the results of the election in North Carolina. Right. And you're correct that the independent legislature theory was essentially this idea that state lawmakers could throw out the popular vote, you know, based on claims, whether they're substantiated or not, of deregularities or voter fraud, et cetera, et cetera, and just determine the results of the presidential election themselves.
And I think it's useful to do kind of for historical context, like a lot, a lot of this kind of similar theory is coming from a part of the conservative movement that also wants to repeal the 17th amendment. So that amendment that calls for the direct election of senators. Right. Before the 17th amendment, senators, US senators were picked by each state legislature. Right. And so this is part of a movement that thinks that, you know, we should get rid of the direct election election of state legislature, of state, of the, excuse me, of US Senators, and just leave that to state lawmakers.
And it's, and it's kind of, a lot of it is driven by the way the Electoral college works and the functioning of the Senate that gives disproportionate amount of power to rural states and states that are primarily vote Republican.
So it's kind of, it's both strategic and ideological in a lot of ways.
And I do want to, I do want to touch on what the caller kind of said, like the, I guess the thrust of her idea. I think I do totally understand the why so many people are disgusted with kind of our choices on national level politics, especially when you look at how much money is involved. You know, the Harris campaign has now raised over $1 billion in campaign contributions, which is just like a staggering amount of money. Right. When you think about it. And that's, and then you have the Trump campaign raising hundreds of million dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars as well.
So I guess my only response to that, because I really, I try to stay not partisan. Right. I definitely have my ideological views and there's a reason that I focus on the far right. And the threat, I think, comes from far right extremism. But I think if people are looking for kind of an antidote to like kind of the kind of the national level politics and how kind of disheartening kind of the way these campaigns are run, I think people should look at their local politics. Like, if your vote, you may not feel that your vote matters on a national level, especially if you don't live in a swing state. Like if you live in someplace like California or Oregon that is deeply blue, or you live in a place like I do in Texas that is deeply red.
I understand the kind of inclination to feel like your vote doesn't matter, but it matters very much on a local level. So that's everything from school board to your county commissioners to your city council members, there are so much of what affects us most directly happens at a much more local level.
And even within that, you see the effects of the far right.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:04] Speaker C: A lot of these, this push across the country to ban books and schools and libraries. Right. That is something that you can fight back against at a local level. So I think if you're looking to, like, find some hope and kind of affect real change, I think it's easy to be kind of disgusted and disheartened at kind of our national politics. But if you look to a local level, I think you can find some inspiration and hope there among your kind of fellow citizens and what they're trying to do, the good for your own local community.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Well, this time in this first half is going quickly, but we do have another caller, I think, so maybe we can get that in briefly.
There's a lot to cover here, so we won't get to all of it, but let's hear what the caller has to say. Hi, you're on the air.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Good evening and thank you for having a concise discussion about matters that matter very, very much.
I think folks overlook the notion of it being a, quote, historical election, several points. First and foremost, I want to thank your guest and ask him to possibly speak about specifically Enrico Torrio, the ostensible leader of the proud boys who's in fact a Canadian citizen who conveniently had himself arrested for burning a Black Lives Matter banner at a church, black church, prior to January 6 so that he could be have an alibi to be in a jail cell for January 6th. Also, perhaps if your guest wants to extrapolate at all about something I heard this morning on K mud on thank Ja that President Biden has already ordered the DoD to use lethal force on domestic terrorists should the election go south.
I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of people are up and literally up in arms. It's a travesty for a republic to behave itself like this. And then my last point would be that, folks, $1 billion for a DNC candidate who did not caucus either at the convention, who didn't receive one vote from one delegate, and a Republican candidate who is a twice accused of causing the insurrection and was impeached twice, has multiple felonious charges against him. But all of that money that's being spent on these races is not being spent on the populace and it's the networks that are putting out the false information that are getting this largess of all of this cash. I want to thank you again. Let's continue to have an intellectual discussion, forgive me, not an intellectual discussion, a cogent discussion about what really matters. And that is the day after.
If we see the ascension of the Republican candidate, you will not recognize this country anymore, folks. And for those of you who possibly support individual one, you will suffer right along with the rest of us. That's my opinion. But I think that it bears out. In fact, I'd like to hear a bit more about Torrio and these other, you know, the poll observers that are going to be out there illegally. How close are they going to be to get to polling stations? How safe are people going to feel to vote, et cetera? It's a travesty. And I hope that we can find a peaceful foot forward. Thank you again for your show. Thank you to your guests for taking the time to meet with us. And thank you for our engineer and all of you who support KMUD Free Speech Radio.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Thanks. You bring up a lot of good points. We do have to wrap up this segment.
Teddy, I don't know if you have any quick comments or responses to what the caller said.
[00:25:19] Speaker C: Well, I'll just try to address a couple things quickly.
You know, I don't, I mean, I don't know that I've seen any evidence that Enrico Torrio, like purposely got himself arrested prior to January 6th. I think there is has already been enough evidence that has come out about his involvement in the planning, coordination and the involvement of the Proud Boys and their communications with other far right groups, including the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers prior to January 6th. I don't think Enrique Ontario is escaping justice in any way, so we can.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: Go right into that.
[00:26:05] Speaker C: But I would also say, I think just quickly on the things that have come out about the DoD and the use of lethal force. I think if your listeners are interested, the War Horse, which is a publication that covers all manners of veterans and military issues that is staffed mostly by veterans themselves that are now journalists, did a pretty good thorough kind of look at that. And essentially it boils down to right wing groups are promoting a conspiracy theory about the DoD directive that came out that used basically boilerplate language around the use of force. I've seen right wing media kind of use kind of similar boilerplate language in other instances to promote kind of conspiracy theories. So as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing there, there.
And then lastly, I think around the topic of poll watchers, right. And the threat to voters.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: And voter intimidation, I think, I think those are real things that I think people should be exceptionally concerned about.
There are plenty of things that I try not to be alarmist about, but I think this is one of those issues. I think in contested areas of the country, the right wing has created kind of an army of pole watchers. And you're going to be seeing them interact with far right extremist groups that are going to come out and try to intimidate people at the polls. And then on top of that you have people like the Constitutional sheriffs, this group of sheriffs that are elected in counties around the country that have this view that they are the end all, be all as far as the Constitution and the legal system go.
And there was a really great piece recently about their involvement in Wired, written by David, a really fine journalist named David Gilbert.
And that piece I highly recommend, I think I linked to it in my newsletter this week. But yeah, those are just my kind of last few thoughts.
[00:28:42] Speaker A: Well, I think I really thank you for making the time to be with us, Teddy. And we certainly could have spent a lot more time on this. Teddy Wilson journalist, researcher, consultant, radical reports. You can check that out on his substack feed and he publishes on that regularly talking about a lot of these issues. So we appreciate you making the time to be with us.
[00:29:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And if your listeners want to find it, it's radicalreports.org and you can find me on social media. I'm still on X. I'm going to be there. Twitter to the bitter end.
All the other social media you can find me at reportbywilson.
But yeah, thank you so much for having me on. It was a real pleasure to get to talk to you and interact with your listeners tonight.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah, our pleasure as well.
[00:29:32] Speaker D: KMUT is a community radio station in the Redwood region of Northern California. Donate support people powered
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[00:29:50] Speaker A: All right, moving on. Since we've things seem to be going by quickly here. Got a lot happening and a lot to talk about. And this is global stuff, as I mentioned. My name is Jimmy Dershlag. Now we're going to bring back a friend, I would hope friend of the show, as people say, and a friend of our community and our, our certainly our state, Norman Solomon, who's the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy that you can find@ accuracy.org he is also one of the founders of RootActions.org, co founder, national coordinator of RootsAction.org which promotes a lot of different causes.
And we're going to talk a little bit about the election and his recent book. We had Norman on in last September to talk about his book which came out last year, war Made How America Hides the Toll of Its Military Machine. And since then he wrote and afterward on the Gaza War, which talk about that and its impact on the elections. So welcome to the show, Norman, thanks for making the time to be here.
[00:31:13] Speaker D: Oh, pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, Jimmy.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: So I guess we should jump. Well, before we get into some of the deed that I read the afterword that you sent me that you published. So you published the book. And then several months later in October 7, 2023, there was the Hamas attack that caused the death of 1200 civilians and took 240 hostages. And that became has escalated into the war in Gaza that has killed thousands and thousands of Palestinians primarily and has become a real issue in this, the elections that are coming up and more than that, of course, the impact on the people in the region. The most significant thing. But you wrote an afterword about that. But you also, when we had you on even before that Roots Action ran a campaign step aside, Joe. Asking Joe Biden to not run. And ultimately that's what happened. Maybe not in the way that would have been the smoothest possible transition, but and now we're what, 10 days away, a little over 10 days away from the election. So maybe before we jump into some of the details of Gaza. What's your assessment of where we are right now with all these moving pieces and the factors that have come into play?
[00:33:01] Speaker D: Where we are is that if Biden had stepped aside earlier, there would have been more of a chance to develop momentum for a Democratic candidate to have primaries, to have vigorous debate, as happened in 2020. There were 17 or so candidates for the nomination back four years ago. It didn't hurt at all. It helped, it helped gain momentum for the Democratic candidate, ultimately of Biden. But the Democratic Party establishment and almost every Democrat in Congress stuck by Biden until his disastrous debate this summer. And as you noted, Jimmy, @rootsaction.org, we launched Step Aside Joe almost two years ago.
And first we called it Don't Run Joe. Then he filed with the fec. We changed the name. And it just goes to the establishment's strong, strong inclination to just go along to get along with whoever's in power. So now, of course, we have Kamala Harris, who has been doing her best to make up for lost time. It's really hard to gear up from scratch a presidential campaign, you know, in just a few, even if you're stepping into one that has just been folded down by the existing president. So long story short, there's a very strong fascist upsurge in this country. It's behind Trump, very dangerous.
We don't know what's going to happen, but it's more likely than not. I hate to say that Trump will win. And that just goes to the incredible extreme danger that our country is in.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: So I definitely agree with that assessment. And I have also agonizing a little bit right now and hoping that there's some momentum. I'm you yourself, it's always so kind of incomprehensible to me that with all the things that Trump says every day in media about and the last guest or actually one of the callers brought that up, the fact that he said that he's going to send the weaponize the government against his enemies and potentially send the military to go after our citizens.
The notion that that could even be not well, it's just one of a long list of things that to me in other elections would have made a candidate completely unviable. So it's just so incomprehensible. But it does seem like we don't know how it's going to go. But it definitely there's a strong chance that he could be back in the White House.
[00:35:53] Speaker D: It's one of, as you say, a very long list of items that any in of themselves should be disqualifying. And it's a deterioration of media control. People may have noted that just in the last two days, the editorial boards of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post both were ready to endorse Kamala Harris. And the owners of those newspapers countermanded what the journalists wanted to do and have prevented both of those newspapers from endorsing anybody for president. And here we have somebody who is the Republican nominee, who, if you read, for instance, the Washington Post, you will see accounts daily for many months now that he lies continuously, articles that simply say he is engaged in falsehoods on a daily basis. His hostility for democracy is something that has been reported on extensively by many media outlets, including the Washington Post. And yet we have the owner of the Washington Post countermanding what the editorial board was poised to do and saying, no, we don't have a dog in this race. We don't have a pony in this race. We don't care. We're not going to say who we prefer and endorse for president. Well, this happens to be somebody who owns Amazon, who owns Whole Foods, who owns the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos is somebody who is looking out at antitrust litigation that will be regulatorily engaged with by the new administration.
And he doesn't want to make enemies of someone who plausibly quite likely will be the next president, Donald Trump. And this goes to the role of corporate capitalism and the power that consolidations of wealth, what Bernie Sanders has called the oligarchy, which is very accurate and to bring it close to home here. And we all live in the same congressional district, from the Golden Gate up to the Oregon border along the north coast. And we, for more than a year now have had the Biden administration winking, nodding, giving very mild objections while arming Israel as it slaughters people in Gaza, engages in mass murder, engages in genocide, engages in ethnic cleansing, to put it mildly. And yet we have very few members of Congress who are Democrats or Republicans, no Republicans, and very few Democrats saying boo about it. You know, Bernie Sanders is trying to stop it. A few others have been trying to cut off weapons. And here we have our own congressperson, supposed progressive Jared Huffman. He doesn't say boo about it. He's voted to send billions of dollars more of weapons to Israel. And so we're culpable, too, in the sense that we are going along to get along with supposedly progressive members of Congress who have not put a halt to the White House complicity in the mass murder in Gaza. And not to put too fine a point on it, but in Michigan, perhaps in Georgia, that will make the difference. There are many Muslims, many Arab Americans in Dearborn and elsewhere in Michigan who are understandably sickened, as we all should be sickened by the US Government active complicitly in arming of this mass murder in Gaza. Gaza. And yet we have many Democratic Congress members, including Jared Huffman in our district, who simply votes to send more and more weapons to Israel for the slaughter. So in that sense, a lot of Democrats in Congress are helping Donald Trump win.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: Again. This is global stuff. My guest is Norman Solomon, and he's part of the show. He is the IPA executive director. Accuracy.org is their website. You can go to rootsaction.org he just mentioned there's a petition on there to support tell President Biden not to let Netanyahu involve the US In a war with Iran, which that just happened before I got on the air. I was watching some of the networks and Israel bombed Iran today. Yeah, they, they went in there today and that's happening right now.
So there is a spreading war in the Middle east, which is what we're concerned about. Of course, Donald Trump has said it'll be over the day he gets into office, which, you know, he says a lot.
[00:40:39] Speaker D: Yeah. Donald Trump has just said to Netanyahu, do what you got to do, and with more hand wringing. That's really what the Biden administration has said, too, because until you cut off the weapons, it's just a farce. You know, nobody's going to take you seriously when you say don't kill so many civilians if you keep sending so many weapons, so much ammunition to keep killing civilians.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: And talking about getting into the afterword that you wrote, which is remarkable, and I'm sure it's the situation changes daily.
And when you added that to the book, the heart, it's in the paperback, comes out in the I guess the paperback version of War Made Invisible just came out recently. And you added that afterward after the Hamas invasion, looking at just the list of what's happened in Gaza and how little it's been covered. You know, there is, you know that I'm sure it's frustrating to you. It's been part of your work and history. Is the news media trying to create this false balance where there really is no balance? Because what's happening in Gaza and in Palestine is so over the top. I mean, just the statistics that you give in the afterword, 85% of the residents displaced of these 2.2 million people, 2/3 of the homes destroyed.
There's two Palestinian mothers killed every hour. There's 10 kids having their legs amputated every day. We don't know what the number is, is 25,000, is 50,000. The Israelis told them to go to a certain place and then bomb that place. They're getting bombed with 2 ton or 2000 pound bombs that indiscriminately kill civilians. And yet very little of the details of what's going on there do we see in the media.
[00:42:59] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a point that I emphasize in this paperback edition of War Made Invisible in the Afterward. As you say, that volume of coverage is not the same as coverage that conveys what the war is really doing. And we used to have the cliche that television brings the war into your living room, which is absurd. Anybody who's been anywhere near a war knows that sitting watching a stable piece of television or a device or whatever is about as far as you can get from actually being in a war. And we have that kind of conceit today. And we're encouraged to believe that because sometimes there's a lot of news about a war such as what is being inflicted on Gaza, that somehow that means we are brought to understand what is actually happening there. And war is about terror, bloodshed, death, maiming, grief, horror. And virtually none of that can really be conveyed by news media. Much the less if the news media is unwilling to really portray Palestinian people as human beings anywhere near to the extent that are, mass media in the US will convey that Israelis are human beings. You know, the reality is that they're all people who deserve empathy. And the imbalances are ones that I, I try to get at in the book because this is part of the invisibility of war, the inequality of how people are humanized or not humanized. And as a general rule, when the United States is using Pentagon firepower or arming another country to use Pentagon firepower, then there is much less empathy and humanistic coverage of the people suffering as a result compared to when the shoe is on the other foot, when the 1200 Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas. Much more humanization in the coverage. And of course, when the designated enemy Russia is doing its horrible war on Ukraine, much more humanistic coverage. US Media about the people suffering as a result in Ukraine.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: And we certainly don't want to diminish the fact that Israelis were killed and people are being held hostage.
But this whole Israel has the right to defend itself.
What's happening in Gaza seems like a far cry from Just defending Israel's right to exist.
[00:45:29] Speaker D: So absolutely a far cry indeed. And I point out in the book that the day after October 7th last year, the Israeli ambassador to the UN and the ambassador from Israel to the United nations as well as to the U.S. they all said that, quote, this is our 9 11, which on the surface seemed to make a lot of sense, except when you can project from there what the US did with its so called war on terror. The Brown University cost of war project documented 450,000 civilians directly killed by the US led so called war on terror. Well, what does that mean? 3,000 people die. So in supposed response, almost half a million people are killed. And something very similar, as you're alluding to, Jimmy, in this case, 1200 people slaughtered by Hamas. So Israel has already slaughtered, According to the UN, at least 42,000 people. 19,000 of them are children. So this is a kind of madness that the US government and mass media in this country not only tolerate, but explicitly or tacitly aid in a bet.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: I think we do have a caller who wanted to make a brief comment. I think he was on earlier.
Hi, you had something to add? Sorry, you there? Yeah. Hello. You with us? There you are. Hi.
Oh, thank you. There you are.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: Are we ready to go?
[00:47:04] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead, do it.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: I apologize for wasting a few precious seconds. First and foremost, Mr. Solomon, I voted for you. Always vote for you. I've contributed to your campaign.
I certainly wish that you were representative.
I feel clumsy. But I do have to correct you. It's been printed and it's been revealed by Haaretz, a notable publication coming out of Israel, that possibly more than 50% of the casualties at the Nova rave were the result of Israeli military IDF fire and the outrageous exaggeration of the rapes.
It can't even concur with what's going on in the prisons. Mr. Solomon, thank you for taking the time out of your very busy life. Run again. We are lucky we're all done with Huffy.
End the war in Palestine, please. What's going on in prison?
[00:48:06] Speaker D: Well, thank you for that, Colin. We certainly need to do all we can to end the war on Palestine. I certainly hope, and definitely not me, but I hope somebody will organize to get us a better representative in the election 2026. I'd say briefly that you're quite right that some of the Deaths of the 1200 were Israeli attacks to try to free or at least deal with the Hamas assault. And the wording I came up with in the book is that 1,200 people died as a result of the Hamas attack.
And so that is actually true. None of the 1200 would have died without the Hamas attack. But the way that Israel responded in the chaos and horror sometimes killed Israelis. The Israeli military went in, they simply attacked buildings where Hamas was holding people. I think to your point, which is a very good one, there's well documented torture of prisoners by the Israeli military and so called authorities. Israel is torturing prisoners continually. And we shouldn't forget that. The human rights groups, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and The Israeli group B'Tselem all have called what goes on in Israel apartheid. There's nothing less than mass murder and slaughter and genocide going on now in Gaza. And I would just sum up by saying, I don't know. I grew up where the question was asked, how could the Germans just go about their daily lives while Jews and gypsies and homosexuals were being exterminated? And then during the Vietnam War, we saw that people could go through their daily lives in the US While the United States was slaughtering so many people in Vietnam. And we're seeing now that it's very possible to have the United States society function while the US Government is a directly complicit participant in the slaughter going on in Gaza.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: There's not a lot of time left in this part of the show. We could have easily talked and could talk much longer. I do want to bring it back to the election. You brought up the situation in Michigan. I saw some reporting today, and I'm sure it's not just today where various Muslim leaders are saying, okay, that maybe the Biden administration hasn't done the right things and maybe Kamala Harris has been part of that. She has been. But what's the choice here? You know, it. Would it be better?
Would things. Does that mean we should be voting for Trump, do you think? You know, bring it back to the elections, that that's a lot, that's a reasonable argument, or will affect the way people vote in any way.
[00:51:10] Speaker D: The reality is that Trump would be worse for Palestinians than Biden has been. And that's sort of hard to imagine given how Biden has just gone along to get along with the Netanyahu regime. But from what he has said, Trump is basically wanting to not try to constrain even what Netanyahu continues to do in Lebanon, in Gaza, now in Iran. So it's not a great choice to put up mildly. But I think it would be way worse for the people of the Middle east if Trump is elected.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: He seems to admire Bibi Netanyahu like he does. All kind of autocrats seems to be his playbook. So certainly he's not going to be go along. He seems like he'll go along with whatever Netanyahu. Netanyahu wants.
[00:52:05] Speaker D: Yeah, I think that's right. And cheerleading him along the way.
[00:52:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, we know we've got an exciting election coming up in about 10 days or so, and maybe things will go in a way that is a little better. Certainly American policy with Israel is going to be that may not change a lot. What we're doing there in the Middle east may not change a lot no matter who's elected. So that's unfortunate.
We do appreciate you coming on the show again, Norman. Always a pleasure to give your perspective. And I guess people just have to take this under advanced the advisement and decide what they think might be best. And certainly go to rootsaction.org and sign the petition there if you feel so motivated to encourage the government to stop shipping weapons.
[00:53:04] Speaker D: Yes. And thanks very much to you, Jimmy, and to kmut.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: All right, so this has been global stuff. My name is Jimmy Derschlag. Thanks to Wild Ginger Engineering. And till next time, take care.
[00:53:23] Speaker D: This has been a KMUT podcast to listen to other shows and more episodes of this show. Find us on all the platforms where you get your podcast and also on our website, kmud.org.
